


our very hearts would up and melt away

by katie_cl (toudoujinpachi)



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: M/M, and by au i mean i was vaguely vaguely inspired by the concept, and i use the word vaguely in the absolute roughest sense of the word, as in jumper the film?, jumper au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-06-05 17:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6714337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toudoujinpachi/pseuds/katie_cl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damen couldn't figure it out, as he stared down at the boy, the Jumper, who was currently bleeding all over the fresh sheets Damen had just changed 2 nights previous. Nikandros had claimed the reason he hadn't just dumped the injured boy at the nearest A&E was due to his preference for pretty people with blond hair, but Damen wasn't so sure. Damen had Jumper blood coursing through his veins, he had been a Jumper once too, though it had been years since he had last seen someone Jump. Maybe it could be interesting to help the boy with whatever problem was getting him sliced up and left for dead  - and if the boy just happened to be nice on the eyes too, well Damen wasn't going to complain.<br/>((i've changed the title of this..))</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one - everything sloped, in the mouth of the south below

Damen had left the party when another group of newcomers had burst through the door lugging 6packs and bottles of vodka behind them. It wasn't that Damen wasn't enjoying himself, but there was only a certain amount of time you could spend watching vague acquaintances get absolutely wasted while you stayed stone-cold sober; it seemed that 5 hours was Damen's limit. Which had been more than enough time to work his way around the room at least 3 times, even with counting the constant flow of new guests (though he wasn't quite sure that you could equate people who were complete strangers to the hosts, and everyone else at the party). So at 3:30 in the morning, Damen whispered a quick goodbye to the host who had invited him and slipped out the apartment door, to the winding staircase that lead outside. When he stepped outside the rain was heavier than it had been when he had first arrived. He stooped in the doorway, watching the rain bounce off of the sidewalk for a moment before turning up his collar against the cold and trudging his way down through the sopping pavement to where he had parked his car.

It was a 45 minute drive to the flat that Damen shared with Nik, who was working nights this weekend. Damen didn't feel a pressing urge to pay that much attention to the near empty roads, which were mainly occupied by taxi drivers and late night buses, but still Damen kept both eyes on the road as he fiddled with the dial for the radio - trying to find a station that wasn't playing a mixture of pop hits and trance music. What else could you really expect at 3:45 on a Saturday night? He twisted again and heard a voice croon out of the speakers - it was one of his dad's songs, one of the many melodies that he had grown up around as a kid, probably an old classic playing on some cheesy radio station, but Damen knew that it would either be this or a repeat of a classical music program. He turned up the sound to try and cover the clatter of each raindrop on the metal of the car roof. After a few bars Damen was humming along with the tune; after the first chorus Damen found himself singing along quietly under his breath, and generally feeling altogether quite melancholy. Damen drove the rest of the way home thinking of his father.

He was almost home when it happened. A sudden flash of red, a blur of dirty gold, and Damen was slamming on the brakes, the tyres skidding for traction on the wet road as the steering wheel in his hands locking and effectively become useless as the car spun across the street. Damen didn't know how else to explain it: one moment the street was empty and the next there was a young man kneeling, almost slumped, in the middle of the road. The car juddered to a halt only a few feet from the boy, only having twisted back under Damen's control with his repeatedly panicked pumping of the brake pedal. His heart was pushing adrenaline into his system at double time; his ears filled with static that seemed to get louder and louder, and the blood rushing through his veins to the point where Damen thought he might collapse. A glance at the radio display showed that the system was flittering from frequency to frequency, but never landing on a station. Looking back to the boy Damen noted that he was dripping wet and staring up like at deer caught in Damen's headlights - he wasn't soaked from the rain (although that was already starting to contribute). The man's face was marred by a large gash that was dribbling red across his brow and down his cheek; his hands clutched at some sort of wound in his abdomen that was seeping blood at an alarming rate. His hair was blonde and grimy, spilling out of the bun that was piled on top of his head in bloodied tufts. Damen took another breath, let his head clear and then stepped out of the car.

The first thing the boy did was squint up at Damen and curse, "Merde!". He looked like he wanted to put as much distance as he could between himself and Damen, but even brushing the dirty strands of hair out of his eyes had almost sent him toppling over. If you could tell whether someone was a fighter or flighter just by looking in their eyes, then the young man in front of him definitely wanted to run - the look he shot Damen screamed: stay back, stay back, stay back, not safe, need to keep moving. As Damen got closer he noticed how small the man seemed; there could only be a head and a bit between him and the young man, but as he knelt huddled in the road, Damen couldn't help but feel like he dwarfed the man. Yes it may have had something to do with the man's stance, and Damen's rippling muscles also probably contributed to the fact, but there was something about the sheer vulnerability of being absolutely terrified and having no way to escape. The man curled in on himself as Damen approached, every muscle freezing in anticipation for something, though Damen couldn't figure out what the man could exactly be planning on doing since he could barely keep himself upright.

The second thing the boy did was scrunch his face up tight and try to Jump. He stuttered out of view for a moment, then flickered back, and just as quickly he was gone again. This happened for another few moments, and Damen watched as the man flittered back and forth from here and there, wherever "there" was, just like his favourite VCR had after Kastor had taken the spools of film to pieces and let them pool on the floor by a crying Damen's feet, and his father had rolled the reels back up. The next time the man shudders into view he's in pain - Damen can tell from the way the hand across his stomach clutches at the dirty fabric of his wringing tshirt, and how each attempted Jump lasts for less time than the one that came before. On his last Jump he's gone for barely a millisecond before he gives one last convulse, and slumps forward. It was pure willpower alone that keeps the man conscious - Damen sees each tremor that rushes through the man's body with the strain. Just as Damen thinks the man is out cold, he begins to speak.

"When you take my body home to my uncle tell him I said he was to go fuck himself." Each phrase was was punctured by a laboured breath, and by the time he was finished, Damen was more confused than ever.

"I wasn't sent by your uncle," Damen tries to phrase it like a question and man looks up in shock. Damen's finally close enough that the man can see his face, and when he does, he lets out a small laugh of relief that sounds more like a gasp and ends up in a hard cough that seemed like it could almost bring up blood.

"If you aren't going to kill me, would you mind giving me a hand?" The man was minutes from death and yet every word he uttered was scathing. Damen kneeled next to him, and slipped his mobile out of his back pocket. A bloody hand covered over it. "But no hospitals"

"No hospitals," Damen agreed. He scooped the skinny boy from the ground and placed him gingerly in the passenger seat. Damen headed home.


	2. two - my way back in from the place where I have been

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I think he's a Jumper." Nik's head whipped up again, "For who?"

Once he was back on the road again, Damen phoned Nikandros and put him on speaker. Nik was training to be a real qualified doctor, after spending 4 years working as an unqualified one for Damen's father. He sometimes found himself working for the family still, during late night Jumps that had a habit of spinning out of control and going awry. That was where Damen found Nik when he picked up on the second ring.

"Damen," He knew this was likely the only greeting he would get from his best friend and roommate. Nik sounded cold over the phone, but Damen didn't exactly blame him for that; he knew from experience how tiring a late night Jump could be, knew that even though a hectic mission would feel as though it was draining the life out of a slit vein, an unproductive one could drag in a way that was just as thankless. From the sound of Nik's flat tone, it had been hour after hour of the latter.

"I need a favour," Nik hummed on the other end of the line to let Damen know he was still listening, and so he continued. "I need you to come home and stitch up this guy for me. I almost ran him over on claremont drive and now he's bleeding out in my passenger seat. He'll need a transfusion... At least two bags, maybe more." It was a little shocking that the man was still alive at all - with the amount of blood that he had lost, along with the stress on his heart from so many attempted, Damen wouldn't be shocked if his heart was doing nothing but giving a limp thump every so often at this point.

"Why do you need me? Why can't you just take him to a hospital?" Though Nik huffed in annoyance on the other side of the line, Damen could tell he had piqued his interest: anything would probably be more entertaining than sitting for another couple of hours in a stuffy room that didn't have a telly.

"He specifically said no hospitals... And I think he's running from someone." There was a sigh of defeat and it was now practically a given that Nikandros would be headed home, regardless of which direction the rest of the conversation went in.

"Kastor won't be happy if I just leave." Damen remembered the last time someone walked out on a job, years before; it hadn't been pretty. By the time Kastor had finished with him, he would have been better off dead. The only difference here was that Kastor wouldn't do that to Nikandros, he couldn't.

"Tell Kastor if he has a problem with this then he can come to me. He owes me this much." The other side of the line was silent, and Damen would have thought that Nik had hung up on him if he couldn't hear the distance thrum of machinery - computers and vans and who knows what else - coming from the speakers of his phone. There was murmuring too: Nik muttering to someone and then a gruff voice replying. Kastor? It was possible; it had been so long since he had heard his brother's voice. He heard Nik say the distinct syllables of his full name - Damianos - he listened to it repeated by the other voice, more like a curse than anything else, and then followed up with a grunt of agreeance: it was definitely possible that the other man was Kastor.

"I'll be home in two minutes. Is two bags enough?" Damen glanced over at the unconscious man covered in his own blood.

"Best make it three. See you in a minute then." The line clicked dead, just as Damen pulled up outside the flat. He cradled the warm, limp body into his chest, and Damen was glad not for the first time that he and Nik lived in such a respectable neighbourhood; none of his neighbours had probably even considered staying out this late. He was glad for the cover that the solitude and the darkness gave him - he walked in the gentle flicker of the yellow streetlights that lined the road from his car to the doorway of the apartment building. Damen found getting his housekeys from his back pocket difficult with his arms full - it took several awkward manoeuvers before he was finally able to fish them out - and by the time he had climbed the 4 flights of stairs to the flat he found the door already flung wide open, probably left that way by Nik.

In the apartment he could feel the tingle of electricity that always seemed to linger in places that had recently been used as Jumpspots. This sensation seemed unique to Damen only - he was yet to find another person, Jumper or not, who was coloured by this feeling. He couldn't help but wonder each time he wandered through a Jumpspot if his ability to feel the taint left in a place by a Jump was because of what had happened to him. Damen shook off any feelings of regret perhaps, or maybe sadness, and walked through the sitting room towards his bedroom.

Damen had lifted a leg to give his bedroom door a hard kick when it suddenly swung open, revealing Nik, who took one look at the man in Damen's arms and began swearing.

"Skata!! I thought you said you _almost_ ran him over! He's bleeding out, Damen, kolos!" Damen pushed passed Nik and lay the man on his bed. An array of medical instruments had been spread across the bedside table, including a bag of blood, and Damen spotted another one peeking out of Nik's bag. Nik tossed Damen a packet of surgical gloves, and after pulling on his own he held out a pair of scissors.

"Put those on and then start cutting off his clothes." Damen did as he was told, and the man now lay almost completely naked in his bedroom, and entirely worse for wear. The cut in his abdomen stretched further and deeper than Damen had thought it would, and along with the gash on his brow, there were also several other cut and bruises covering his body. Nikandros swore once under his breath before he began grabbing equipment from the table and preparing it for use. Antiseptic was swabbed in the crook of the man's elbow, sterilising the area before a cannula could be inserted under the skin. With one hand Nik fiddled with the bag of blood that was hung from the headboard, while the other gathered up bundles of gauze that were chucked to Damen.

Each command that Nik gave was precise and to the point: "Put pressure on the wound" was what Damen was told to do next, which he did; only put off a little by the feel of the sluggish hot pulse of blood from the cut through the latex of the gloves. After that Nik made quick work of hooking the man up to a pint of O negative blood and then stitching up the slash that reached from belly button to nipple with neat little sutures that were the type of thing you would find embroidering blouses and those framed fabric squares that lined the wall of old ladies' homes. By the time everything had healed, Damen reckoned that the man would be barely left with any scar at all.

When Nikandros had moved on to cleaning out some of smaller cuts he cleared his throat and Damen prepared himself for a very tense conversation, as though he could feel it crackling in the air.

"You said you almost ran him over, Damen," Nik's tone was terse with exasperation. Nik had glanced up from his work and Damen nodded in agreement to the statement. "He doesn't look like someone who just almost in a car crash."

"I think he's a Jumper." Nik's head whipped up again, "For who?" he sounded shocked, as though this was the very last answer he was expecting to hear, as though he didn't spend 6 nights a week with a team full of Jumpers.

"He's not one of ours," Damen paused; thought it over for a second. "Unless Father's let Kastor take on anyone new."

Nik gave a slight shake of his head. "Damen, are you sure? A Jumper?" "Yeah. He Jumped in front of the truck, that's how I almost hit him. The radio went on the fritz like it always did, and when I got out to see if he was alright he was frightened, he tried to Jump several times before he realised I wasn't whoever he thought I was."

"Christos, a Jumper..." Nik bowed his head and seemed to focus again on the task on hand, but from where Damen was sitting he could see his lips moving silently, as though he was whispering without letting the words escape his throat; Damen had been friends with Nikandros for as long as he could remember, and this gesture had been used by Nikandros frequently during the course of their friendship, not only when he was trying to solve an increasingly difficult problem, but also when he was disbelieving of something, or completely in awe at something that Damen had done. In this scenario, it could have been all three.

Finally he spoke again. "He's the first Jumper you've met since you lost it, isn't he?" Damen nodded once and Nik continued, "Which family do you think he's from?"

"He could be a Patras, it would make sense that I've never seen him then."

Nik snorted then, and it was nice to have reassurance that he wasn't too mad. "Trust the Patras to keep their noses out of Jumping, eh?" And Damen smiled as they began recounting a story about a girl Nik had once dated, only to find out she was a Patras Jumper (she was just as shocked to discover he worked for the Akielos family and promptly dumped him).

"Sorry I've dragged you into... Whatever this is, but I couldn't leave him there to die." Damen tells Nik as they stand shoulder to shoulder at the bathroom sink.

"Damen, man, his wellbeing had nothing to do with it," Nik stated between laughs. "You only had to glance at his blond hair to know you were taking him home!" Damen shoved against him playfully and then turned to head back to his bedroom.

"I'm serious though Nik - thank you, I owe you one." "You owe me much more than just one! Kastor threatened to throttle me when I told him I had to leave!" "Goodnight Nik."

********

Damen awoke in the middle of the night to a buzzing sound. It took a moment for him to remember why he was sleeping all scrunched up in the armchair in his bedroom, and another moment for him to realise that the buzzing noise was the sound of a mobile phone on silent. He pulled himself up and scrambled through the abandoned clothes that belonged to the stranger that was sprawled in his bed and wearing his pyjamas. He finally found the phone in the pocket of the man's leather jacket. He swiped to answer it and before he could speak he was assaulted by a flurry of words coming from the phone.

"Allez vous faire foutre, Laurent! You Jumped without me!" A tinny voice shouted down to him from the other end of the line, which Damen held away from his ear. "What the fuck were you thinking? Were you even thinking?! You left me behind! Cassé toi, Laurent you bastard, you left me here with him!" The voice - a boy, Damen thought, and probably still too young to using language as foul as that - continued babbling on at such a speed that Damen could barely follow. The boy sounded like he could have gone on for another ten minutes if he had not interrupted.

"This is not Laurent. Who is this?" There was a slight inhale from the boy, a curse "FUCK!" barked out loud enough to leave a shrill echoing in his ears, and then the line went dead. Damen stared at the screen, which showed five text messages and two previous missed calls from the same unrecognised number. He slowly set down the phone on the bedside table, staring down at the man in his bed in a new light.

Damen shook the last remnants of sleep far from him, and as he finally awoke everything fell dangerously into place. Something deadly was brewing underfoot, the air was so pungent with the feeling of it that Damen could almost clutch it with both hands, sense it filling every one of his pores. He would be dragged back into the world of Jumpers whether he liked it or not. The man in his bed was Laurent Vere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry I feel like I'm doing this weird thing when I'm talking about laurent, like I'm switching between calling him a man and a boy (i think this is because he's 19 ish and so am i and i would find it weird if someone called me a woman???) idk but i'm sorry bout that...
> 
> sorry i really need to edit this again (also sorry for the long delay)


	3. three - you threw the window wide, and cried amen amen amen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He remembers the Jumpspot spitting him out in the middle of a rain-slick road, and the car swerving wildly across road - skidding to a halt so close that the headlights had filled his vision. And most of all, the silhouette stepping out of the car, lumbering towards him, the abortive Jump attempts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'll be away next week so probably won't get it updated until friday 17th (at the very very earliest)!! sorry!!

He awoke in an unfamiliar bed, wearing unfamiliar clothes, and with no clues as to how he had ended up there. He had always imagined if something like this was to happen to him - if he found himself in strange surroundings, or in immediate danger (which often were the same thing) - he would be sluggish in regaining consciousness, that there would be something languid in the way he first peeled open his eyelids, pulled himself upwards to try and comprehend just exactly what had happened to him. It was exactly the opposite.

He threw himself forwards in this unfamiliar bed with such force, that every muscle in his body screamed with such exceptional pain that he himself almost screamed out with the shock of it. It was only that bone-deep instilled instinct that he had culture in himself from the age of thirteen that sealed his lips. Better to suffer in silence than let out the aches of the affliction and risk tempting something worse; don't give anyone the satisfaction of knowing that he was hurt, that he was shook up, that he felt anything at all - dissuade any thought that would oppose the image that he was the cold as ice bitch everyone thought him to be.

The ache in his chest, his arms, his legs, his head was so unbearable that there was nothing else he could do but simply flop back into the sweaty sheets and grit his teeth until they've rubbed down to chalk dust, waiting endlessly for the punches in his stomach to pass. After everything has settled again he gingerly peels back the neck of the tshirt he's wearing (careful with each movement of the cannula jutting out of his arm), which is at least four sizes too large for his lithe frame, the fabric pooling over and under him like a dismantled tent, and it is only after he has carefully prised his way through a layer of bandage that he sees the injury.

A line stretches from just under his left nipple all the way to just above his right hip, pink and angry and sewn back together with neat little stitches. He pulls the tshirt up to expose his belly to the stagnant air, moves a hand to run his fingertips down the highway of crisscrosses that dips and rises to follow the contours of his midriff before noting the grime that's embedded deep into the groove of each fingerprint (a thin layer of grease, sweat, dirt coats his whole body) and thinks better of it. The gash looks deep (he tries not to imagine his guts spilling out onto the floor), already it looks red-hot and infected; he thinks it best to leave it well alone. He begins the long struggle to pull himself into a sitting position, sure that any doctor would tell him he should be resting - but he did not have this commodity.

As he catches his breath again, he takes a moment to drink in his surroundings: on either side of him the walls were draped in fabrics and hangings that were dyed deep, rich shades of orange and yellow and red; at the end of the bed almost the entirety of the wall was taken up by a large bay window, which he could tell was facing the rising sun from the streams of light that spilled through the cracks in the curtains and danced with stray strands of dust that were suspended in the air. The room smells of spices: nutmeg and cinnamon and something sweet that he can't quite place. In one corner there was an armchair that looked as though it had recently been slept on, and to his right there was a doorway that he presumed led further into the apartment.

By the time he's managed to shuffle himself to the end of the bed he'd pieced most of it together - the fight, his uncle's men, the knife. He gets a sudden flash of Nicaise, hidden in what was meant to be a protective gesture behind his uncle, his face a map of terror, as he had been surrounded, blood dripping from everywhere, as he had mouthed "sorry" to the boy and made one last desperate Jump. He has to fight to not to be sick then, partly from the throes of pain each movement had caused, but more because he only had one thought running circles in his head: _you left him there, you left him there with_ him _, you left him there to be "protected" by_ him _!_

As he stands by the open window - almost pulling multiple stitches with the effort of forcing the water-swollen wooden sash that sticks and scrapes loudly against the window frame - he remembers the Jumpspot spitting him out in the middle of a rain-slick road, and the car swerving wildly across road - skidding to a halt so close that the headlights had filled his vision. And most of all, the silhouette stepping out of the car, lumbering towards him, the abortive Jump attempts: the ring of panic that had coursed through his body - because Govart hadn't been with his uncle, and could they have possibly tracked him down so fast? The pulse of relief that seemed to go straight to his heart with the adrenaline rushing through his veins had been so palpable that it had been a miracle that he had been able to get another word out to the stranger.

He notes with both a sinking and a rising again in his stomach that he doesn't recognise anything of settings outside his window, though all he can really see is an alleyway and the back of another building - it meant for sure that this wasn't another one of his uncle's tricks (though it wouldn't have made much sense to stitch him back together if he was wanted dead), but it also implied that he wouldn't be able to get far in the unfamiliar city on foot (he was in no fit shape for Jumping). Each breath he takes seems to encourage the fog that seeps in at the edges of his vision: which is odd as he'd thought the fresh air would have remedied this (or at the very least made the room stop spinning). He wants to leave the bedroom, explore the rest of the building he's being held captive in, but he finds as he turns in the direction of the only door that his feet won't do what he wants them to, and on top of that the whole world has begun twirling at an incredible speed whilst he is being held in place by a giant pin, like a dead bug in a glass cabinet.

It takes another three fruitless attempts before he can finally cajole his feet into moving where he wants them to - he only feels slightly ill as he stumbles across the floor, which he is proud of, and then he is irked at being pleased by such a trivial matter. As the lead blocks on the ends of his ankles fumble over each other he hears voices coming from behind a closed door, either another bedroom or the kitchen. There is two of them, and one seems a lot angrier than the other (though maybe angry isn't the right description - the tone reminds him of when Auguste would berate him as a young boy). He tries to focus on the words being spoken, but as he does the floor topples out from under him, and he is sliding down the wall behind him, slumping with a thump on the wooden floor boards.

The door swings open and the two voices are in front of him - one of them, the shorter of the two (though not by much) stoops next to him and begins fussing over him. The men continue whispering furiously over his body, but he finds it difficult to follow the conversation, he feels as though they're speaking in some exotic language that he's not heard of before. He only catches tiny soundbites of each sentence. 

" _..... a concussion and a fever...... it's infected!........ Damen........ he's your sworn...... lift him up...... Damen!....._ " The other man leans down for a second, but only so he can scoop him up in his arms and carry him back in the direction of the bedroom. He feels exposed and vulnerable and incredibly fragile as he lies limp in the man's arms, doubly so than when he was small and would bend to his uncle's every whim. He strains his head forward and looks up at the man's face.

" _Who... are you?"_ His voice is croaky and hoarse, like he hasn't used it for day (it occurs to him that it could have been days, and he remembers the chant from before and tries not to think of Nicaise alone).

" _I'm Damen,_ " the man replies. " _You're safe here, Laurent._ " Behind them the other man snorts and mutters something under his breath. It is only then that he realises that he had spoken instinctively in French, as they did at home, and the man, Damen, had replied back in it. Not only that but it also clicked suddenly that the reason he had struggled to follow the two men's conversation had been speaking not in English but in hushed tones of Greek. He knows this is significant because of... something; but the reason is eluding him, and already the room is slipping away from him again. 

He is settled back on the bed gently and cautioned not to get up again. As Damen hovers over his slack body, Laurent stutters out of consciousness and is enveloped by darkness once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \-- word to the wise, kids, if you're gonna write a story for an audience like i'm doing right now, it would be a lot easier if you actually have something, anything planned out in your head as far as your plotline goes.... --

**Author's Note:**

> hi I really don't know what I'm doing right now. I'll probably update in another few days time. Also I didn't really double check this so let me know if there's anything i should change (and i think the summary is crap, i just couldn't think what else to put)  
> the title is from a joanna newsom song (and also each chapter title is a line from that same song) because jo is my absolute most favourite (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRnikXRJ6hY - i swear it's the prettiest song in the whole world)
> 
> \- hope you enjoyed reading and see you again soon !!
> 
> also catch me at ne1ljosten.tumblr.com for a good time


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